Hello - I've been on a long quest to lucid dream. I've experimented from time to time with minimal success, but nothing definite, satisfying or lasting, and invariably it takes too much dedication that it soon is given up.

And yet I am hopeful because I've had many strange dreams during my life, and so I tell myself that it must be possible, but these events are usually either rare or something I used to get but for some reason no longer do.

Prior to the age of 10 I suffered multiple episodes of sleep paralysis (once consecutively the same night, after failing to wake up fully after I escaped the first dream).

In all cases I was NOT in control of it starting, and most of the time it was scary, disturbing, or downright terrifying - as in, the most terrified I've ever been in my life, asleep OR awake!

I experienced the hypnapompic version. It would seem to be triggered by a generic nightmare I suddenly realized was a dream and needed to be escaped to avoid the experience of fear. Sometimes it was simply the sudden idea that things were starting to go bad and my instinct was to get out of dodge. This moment seemed to coincide precisely with a sudden feeling of heaviness, sinking into the bed or being pressed into it, a buzzing sound intensifying and being unable to move or breathe or call for help, all of which I attempted with every fiber of my being. The more I struggled the worse it seemed to get (and it would always be worse - more intense, scarier and long lasting - if I slept on my back). Somehow, though, I was able to escape, or perhaps it just ended on its own. But the terror was so intense, it is hard to describe, but it was this most disturbing dread and panic while being completely helpless, fearing death if I could not escape somehow, with all the weird hallucinations that also including vibrations and electricity.

Eventually I had a few less scary dreams, and all the while I'd experiment with sleeping on my stomach, focusing my energy while paralyzed into letting out a single burst of energy in a scream or muscle movement, or by hitting myself on the head... to one key dream where I didn't wake up after a bizarre buzzing sound and sensation and then (lucidly?) voluntarily continued to do it again and again, feeling instead euphoric. It had taken years, but this dream put the nail in the coffin for sleep paralysis.

A few very minor incidents happened later, but they were very brief and devoid of terror. Only a slight heaviness existed, somewhat numb, a pressure, even sensing the sound of the room in my ears changed slightly, or briefly realized that I couldn't move when I tried, then waking up.

The only hypnagogic experience was in college while dealing with insomnia and pulling an all-nighter. While attempting a nap I feel right into a lucid state where very strange things happened - not scary but unsettling, culminating in me sitting up from my body and feeling a pull to bring me back into it. That is probably the closest I ever got to an OBE.

Other than that (and some other episodes of insomnia) I've not had many odd experiences in years. I used to be a champion epic vivid dreamer, though. I never had night terrors, sleep walked or teeth-grinded. I wet my bed a few times in my pre-teen years, and a couple close calls since. I never had narcolepsy, even though that condition is strongly correlated with SP and hallucinations. The odd myclonic jerk now and then. Plenty non-lucid dreams of flying or levitating. And as a teen several nocturnal emissions (including one in which I was lucid! - though it was unexpected and involuntary).

Because I've read that SP is more common in the teen years and later, I am surprised that in my case the opposite was true, that I had it bad when I was a little kid and had NO idea what it was, and then it ended precisely when for most people it would begin. Is there an explanation for that?

Anyway, I am here to seek lucid dreams and gather advice and moral support in this pursuit. Thanks.

I've had hypagogic hallucination too. Its strange. I never really thought much about them until now. They can't he random conversations you had in the day because mine wasn't linked to me. It was a different country and centuries ago. It may be linked to our past lives.